


Madman in the Rain

by shootingstarcipher



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Dark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, Neglect, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:02:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12592496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: Eddie called Richie a madman for what he’d done.Richie couldn’t help but disagree. Eddie was the one who should have locked up, but it wasn’t like he could have lived without him and so their argument was rendered mute, though naturally it escalated to extremes regardless.Requested by an anon on tumblr - based on "Just the Same" by Bruno Major.





	Madman in the Rain

Almost anyone who knew them were surprised they hadn’t killed each other yet and most of the abuse they hurled across at each other was kept secret, performed only in the darkness and in a desolate place no-one else ever seemed to notice, with the exception of the occasional wild animal that ended up there. It had taken Richie countless attempts to convince Eddie to meet him there in the abandoned house on Neibolt Street and even more stop him from running out screaming whenever a rat scurried by or a pigeon flew in through one of the open windows, but the main focus of his sense of accomplishment was on himself and the way he’d finally managed to get Eddie away from the rest of the group – though it was Mrs Kaspbrak who had been putting up a fight, forbidding her son from going anywhere near him without supervision from anyone else.

It was as if she’d known what his intentions were and in hindsight she probably did, as he suspected at least one or two of the other members of the Losers’ Club did as well, because he later realised his feelings were often not very well hidden at all. Eddie himself seemed clueless, but then he wasn’t there to hear him witter on about him to Bill during their frequent late-night phone calls (nobody else answered him after ten o’clock at night anymore) or to see him lose himself in the tranquillity of his sleeping face at sleepovers (because while Richie was usually the last to fall asleep, Eddie was always the first).

And fortunately, no-one was there to read his thoughts as he lay awake in bed at night or listen in on his dreams, which he hoped to God Eddie never saw him wake up from.

But the way Eddie looked at him was always lost on Richie, so consumed by his own fantasies that it never occurred to him the object of them might be bursting with the exact same thoughts. Because that would have been stupid – more stupid than anyone thought Richie Tozier was and much, much less intelligent than he actually was. It seemed impossible to even consider Eddie Kaspbrak looking at him like anything other than a loudmouthed, outrageous idiot just like everybody else did (unless they didn’t look at him at all, but rather stared right through him as if he wasn’t even there) and so he spent no time dwelling on the idea except in his dreams, which he had no control over whatsoever.

It was only when he’d eventually succeeded in getting Eddie alone that the possibility started to feel real and by the time the younger boy had stopped disappearing at the sound of a pigeon flapping its wings nearby, all pretence that their feelings were non-existent disintegrated and while their minds were temporarily paralysed by the realisation, their instincts were able to take over entirely. Richie’s mind regained control after he’d unknowingly imprisoned Eddie against the closest wall and Eddie’s mind came back into play just in time to bite down on his lower lip to prevent any sound from escaping as Richie viciously gnawed along his collarbone, the sudden pain coming off as oddly pleasant.

Most of Richie’s strength and energy was used up trying not to appear as disappointed as he truly was when he found himself being pushed away a moment later and as he took a step back, releasing Eddie from his unintentionally rough grip in the process, he gnawed on his thumb nail instead, hoping the distraction would serve to hide his dissatisfaction. Eddie could barely look at him and he himself fixed his gaze on the floor below, mentally noting how rotten the floorboards were in an attempt to distract himself from his frustration. He only looked back up at the wall when Eddie pushed past him and fled the house without a word. Richie was about to chase after him, took two or three hasty steps in his direction, and then quickly stopped himself, realising that Eddie must have been more confused about himself than he was.

It had become apparent to him a long time ago that he perhaps wasn’t the person he was expected to be when it came to matters of attraction, and although he’d had his fair share of crushes on girls, there had been a few times before he’d met Eddie Kaspbrak that he’d considered how attractive certain boys were as well. He never had been one for conforming to social guidelines just because he was told by some supposed “authority figure” that he should, so it came as no surprise to him when he began to question why it was deemed acceptable for boys to be attracted to girls but not anyone of the same gender.

Then Bill Denborough, who was his only friend at the time, introduced him to Eddie and all hell broke loose inside his brain because while he’d noticed other boys his age were just as good-looking as some of the girls, he’d never felt a connection like this with anybody else. And over a year later, he still hadn’t. It was only Eddie he was unable to shut up about to his other friends, it was only Eddie whose accidental touch sent burning waves of electricity shooting around his body, and it was only Eddie who he so often found himself daydreaming about to the point where he was utterly and uncontrollably lost to the world.

He waited a few minutes, back leaning against the wall he had previously had his best friend pinned to, before following him out of the rickety old house, his mind still occupied by his fixation on Eddie and his heart still wholly occupied by a sickening combination of sadness and longing. 

As he headed down the stairs and into the hall, approaching the door with gradually slowing footsteps, a silhouette came into view, only the outline of a short, slender figure visible from behind the door. Eddie. He hadn’t left; he was still there, just outside the door… Waiting? For him? Richie certainly hope so, but there was a tiny speck of doubt hiding at the back of his mind, chewing away at him, every step he took widening the fissure in his brain the doubt had created.

“Eds?” he said hesitantly as he pulled the door open towards him, closing it behind him as he stepped out onto Neibolt Street. Eddie turned to look at him momentarily before dropping his gaze back to the ground and refusing to answer. He was crouching on the porch with his inhaler held to his mouth as he wheezed into it with more desperation than Richie was used to seeing in him. 

All sense of logic being thrown out the window and replaced entirely by worry and panic, he rushed forwards, kneeled on the ground beside the younger boy and covered his hands with his own, keeping the inhaler pressed to his lips. “You’ll be okay, Eds. You just need to breathe.” If Eddie had been able to speak then he would have snapped at him to shut the fuck up – which was probably the most common phrase that was ever said directly to Richie Tozier by anyone at all, but especially Eddie – but as he couldn’t, he had no choice but to continue inhaling and exhaling slowly in attempt to relax himself and his rapidly beating heart.

But once he’d regained his composure and no longer had to rely on his inhaler to keep his breathing steady, he slapped Richie’s hand away from him with more force than the older boy felt necessary, resulting in Richie once again having to disguise his feelings of abandonment and dejectedness with an inappropriate joke and a hollowed-out grin. When the lingering tension still refused to disperse, he pulled Eddie to his feet – though Eddie accepted his hand reluctantly and with a scowl – and offered to walk him home. Their houses were only a few streets away and in any case, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Eddie wouldn’t be safe unless he was there to protect him. The asthma attack that only ended seconds beforehand was the worst one he’d witnessed in a very long time and it was all too possible that it would pick up again once they went their separate ways.

Being the stubborn idiot that he was, however, Eddie outright refused and snapped at him to stay away – a side of him Richie had only seen for himself once or twice before. They argued almost constantly but he had never seen true hatred in the younger boy’s eyes directed straight at him, that cold, unfeeling glare reminding him far too much of Mrs Kaspbrak’s for comfort. So Richie nodded solemnly, despising himself for annihilating their friendship with such a foolish act of selfishness, and left.

He left Eddie standing in the garden of that hellish house on Neibolt Street where only bad things seemed to happen yet so many inexplicably wonderful memories had been made, staring after him in the dark with a look that could only have been described as indecipherable on his face. There was yearning in his eyes but hatred in his glare, and so it was fortunate that Richie staggered away without ever once looking back.

And it wasn’t until the next morning that he discovered it was the biggest mistake he’d ever made.


End file.
